NationStates Jolt Archive


I despise my generation!

Hominoids
23-07-2005, 00:54
We Baby Boomers have managed to royally fuck up America... Swinging from one political extreme to another, doing what we can to eviscerate the First Amendment, making religion into an exercise in narcissism, raising a generation of children for whom hubris is a way of life, watching reality TV.

GenXers, rise up and kill us all, now, before we do any more damage!
Oxwana
23-07-2005, 00:56
Hey!
I hate your generation too!
What a coincidence...
I like you though. One of the enlightened few. :)
Grakona
23-07-2005, 00:57
Well the Xerox Generation is doing well. The MTV Generation (mine) has yet to fully blossom into fuctioning members of society. And finally the computer generation are in development, newborns, or babies.
Ashmoria
23-07-2005, 01:18
i just hate our hypocrisy. all that raising the drinking age, going nuts over moderate underage drinking, keeping marajuana illegal, pretending that your 15 year old is too delicate to see cartoon sex in grand theft auto, etc. makes me sick.
Colodia
23-07-2005, 01:21
Ha, w00t for Millenium Generation!

(1990 birthyear qualifies, right?)
Xenophobialand
23-07-2005, 01:33
Ha, w00t for Millenium Generation!

(1990 birthyear qualifies, right?)

You're a Gen Y'er if you were born in 1990. The cutoff between X and Y was somewhere between 1980 and 1982 (I myself consider myself to be an Xer, and I was born in 1982. In fact, anyone who called me a Yer would probably get socked, since I tend to associate those little dumbasses with corporate-programmed automatons. No offense).


Millenials would therefore be kicking off from about 2000 to 2002.
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 01:35
GenXers, rise up and kill us all, now, before we do any more damage!
Sorry, we are too busy feeling sorry for ourselves and looking for ways to pass the time that don't suck so much.

Up to you, Y-ers.
Grampus
23-07-2005, 01:35
GenXers, rise up and kill us all, now, before we do any more damage!

Us GenXers ain't much better. As Turbonegro so eloquently put it:

Ethnic hair styles/Sloppy male hippies/Retro punks/People with thick glasses/Glorifying serial killers/Hobbit motherfuckers/No guts/No glory/No riot

I've had enough/My generation sucks
I agree/My generation sucks

Cyber idiots with pierced scrotums/Copulating/With animals/In cars/Parked ouside the rave party/Not enough war/Not enough famine/Not enough suffering/Not enough natural selection

That's what I say/My generation sucks
I've had enough/My generation sucks
Neo Kervoskia
23-07-2005, 01:45
Sorry, we are too busy feeling sorry for ourselves and looking for ways to pass the time that don't suck so much.

Up to you, Y-ers.
Eh, crap that'll just fuck up the planet.
Leonstein
23-07-2005, 01:48
What Generation is 1985?
(turns out Chernobyl left me in one piece....)

Anyways, I don't like the Baby Boomers either. They put down the foundation for this weird little society we have right now. And they don't vote the way I want them to.
Eastern Skae
23-07-2005, 01:55
Ahhhh...boomers...what losers. I actually probably could do a little to take some of them out...being a juvenile my record would be cleared in 2 years anyway.... :p
Grampus
23-07-2005, 01:59
What Generation is 1985?
(turns out Chernobyl left me in one piece....)

Generation Y, but actually there is so far little to differentiate the stereotyped characteristics of Gen Y from Gen X: you seem to be doing much the same thing as we did.
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 02:03
Eh, crap that'll just fuck up the planet.
I don't care, I'm an X'er. The boomer are the ones who supposedly cared, and they screwed it anyway.

What's left to care about?
Leonstein
23-07-2005, 02:05
I don't care, I'm an X'er. The boomer are the ones who supposedly cared, and they screwed it anyway.
Aren't the Boomers the ones who started throwing everything away?
I blame them.
And the X's too.
And the Z's and the Pokemons and everyone but the Ys....
Ritlina
23-07-2005, 02:08
Go Xgeneration!
Grampus
23-07-2005, 02:12
Aren't the Boomers the ones who started throwing everything away?

Not really: if we consider the start of the disposable society to be in the 1950s, then it is the generation who fought in WWII and then came home who are responsible for that bright idea.
Undelia
23-07-2005, 02:16
Not really: if we consider the start of the disposable society to be in the 1950s, then it is the generation who fought in WWII and then came home who are responsible for that bright idea.
What do you mean when you say “disposable society”?
Minalkra
23-07-2005, 02:18
There are three things you can't say, no matter what.

1) Advocate the violent overthrow of the US Government.
2) Advocate the assassination of the US President.
3) Yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater or other such malicious acts of public endangerment.

So . . . . no comment? Well, except 'FIRE!'
Boonytopia
23-07-2005, 02:19
I was born in the 70s, what generation does that make me?
Australus
23-07-2005, 02:19
What do you mean when you say “disposable society”?

That means a situation where everything is just tossed in the trash after it's supposedly outlived its usefulness (and many times when it hasn't).

Individually wrapped snackfoods, plastic TV dinner trays, and anything of a construction shoddy enough to warrant simply being tossed out without regard for landfill space.
Undelia
23-07-2005, 02:21
That means a situation where everything is just tossed in the trash after it's supposedly outlived its usefulness (and many times when it hasn't).

Individually wrapped snackfoods, plastic TV dinner trays, and anything of a construction shoddy enough to warrant simply being tossed out without regard for landfill space.
Are we supposed to keep that stuff around? :confused:
Grampus
23-07-2005, 02:22
What do you mean when you say “disposable society”?

A society based upon using reusable resources or products once and then disposing of them: fr'instance - plastic bags. When they first became available they would be washed and reused, however they then bacame a disposable commodity that would be used once and then binned. They are a pretty good example of the change in the west (the US excluded for some peculiar reason) which occured in the 1950s.
Grampus
23-07-2005, 02:23
Are we supposed to keep that stuff around? :confused:

In a 'sane' society we wouldn't be overproducing such single-use items, and so wouldn't be snowed under by them if we did try to keep them around.
Rummania
23-07-2005, 02:28
I don't have a lot of respect for the Boomers as a generation. They were all LSD and revolution 35 years ago, then they got their diplomas and now they drive SUVs and vote Republican. They justify their hypocrisy with rationalizations that "things were different then" or "there was a war on" and "drugs weren't as potent then." American imperialism, racism and war are still around and pot and acid still aren't addictive. But no, these dilettantes act like they went to a protest in 1972 and therefore have served their time in the trenches against the forces of American fascism, and are now entitled to relax in the suburbs. So who's going to change things? Their complacent, spoiled kids? The washed up relics of their glory days? I think not; Tom Hayden is a congressman for christ's sake! Either the system bought the boomers off completely or they never really cared in the first place.
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 02:35
Are we supposed to keep that stuff around? :confused:
Many, many, many years ago, things were used time after time after time until they broke or became otherwise unusable, even condoms. No one would think of throwing out a prefectly usable tray or a sofa that simply needed new upholstering.

Then came a revolution in materials and manufacturing after WW2 that flooded the world with cheap stuff (not necessarily bad quality, many times it was the opposite, ironically) that could just be thrown away and you wouldn't need to worry about anymore. In fact, the big word of the day to describe a product was "Disposable" and people couldn't get enough of those things.

Of course, people failed to consider what happened to those things once you disposed of them. They went into landills. No one ever considered about the raw materials needed to manufacture those goods. "We'll just extract more", they said.

It was called "disposable society" because that concept of just using for a limited time and throwing away permeated into all aspects of society: disposable diapers led to disposable entertainment, disposable books, disposable fads and disposable people.

The "instant satisfaction" people came later.
Xenophobialand
23-07-2005, 02:38
I don't have a lot of respect for the Boomers as a generation. They were all LSD and revolution 35 years ago, then they got their diplomas and now they drive SUVs and vote Republican. They justify their hypocrisy with rationalizations that "things were different then" or "there was a war on" and "drugs weren't as potent then." American imperialism, racism and war are still around and pot and acid still aren't addictive. But no, these dilettantes act like they went to a protest in 1972 and therefore have served their time in the trenches against the forces of American fascism, and are now entitled to relax in the suburbs. So who's going to change things? Their complacent, spoiled kids? The washed up relics of their glory days? I think not; Tom Hayden is a congressman for christ's sake! Either the system bought the boomers off completely or they never really cared in the first place.

Not quite. What you say is true, but you miss the underlying structure behind Boomerism. If you look at the Baby Boomers, the one thing that unites both sides an overriding committment to "Me first, and me only." The leftists bought into crap spewed by drug-addled English professors that there was no external world, and therefore, the only thing of consequence was my wants, my desires, as often and as soon as I can satisfy them. The rightists bought into the crap spewed by Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Freidrich Hayek, who weren't on drugs but crazy enough without them, that the only thing that made the world work was self-interest, which makes my wants, my desires and the satisfaction thereof not only permissable, but moral as well. So in that by 1980, you had Ronald Reagan declaring war on the very concept of collective responsibility, Boomers no longer needed to fight, because the war of ideas was over. Since then there has only been the occassional brushfires raised when a few goofy Xers and Yers start talking about things that might conceivably impinge upon Boomerism, like the fair traders at the Seattle WTO meeting, who are quickly reviled for their violence against the Boomer system.

The big problem with Xers isn't that we're slackers; its that we bought the Boomer line of absolute egoism hook, line, and sinker. Yers just don't know any better, because they don't remember a world that didn't embrace the mantra that Greed is Good.
Whitepowers
23-07-2005, 02:45
We Baby Boomers have managed to royally fuck up America... Swinging from one political extreme to another, doing what we can to eviscerate the First Amendment, making religion into an exercise in narcissism, raising a generation of children for whom hubris is a way of life, watching reality TV.
GenXers, rise up and kill us all, now, before we do any more damage!


Yes, its true, you guys started the rot.
And now we have to put up with generation Now: (idiotic-lazy-drug dependant-impatient-misery-unfit-rude-no morals-self centred-cowards.)

Thanks, you really improved the future.
Your parents went through the great depression and WW2, great sensible brave people who overcame hardtimes and kept their sense of humour.
How did they breed an indulgent (moderate by todays standards) generation like yours?
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 02:46
The big problem with Xers isn't that we're slackers; its that we bought the Boomer line of absolute egoism hook, line, and sinker.
That's not the entirety of the problem with Xers. When Boomers came up with that philosophy, there was an entire world for them to take. When we bought it, the world was entirely taken, we had a lot of ideas to try out and things we wanted to do, but no place to do them.

However, it's very hard to keep a generation down, and the Xers still are the most highly educated generation yet (since the Y'ers still have a few years of school left), which resulted in generation X being one of the most creative ever.
Southaustin
23-07-2005, 02:48
Xenophobialand

You're not Gen X.
Gen X (1965-1975) came after the Baby Boomers (1946-1964).

Gen Xers were the ones who got screwed not once, but twice on the drinking age. Right before I turned 18 it went to 19, then right before I turned 19 it went to 21.

I remember being pissed off because they used to print all of the people who were charged with DWI in the paper but they were mostly ALL over 21.
I don't recall having any trouble getting drunk though.

Ecstacy was legal and then the BOOMERS screwed us out of that too. What a bunch of hypocritical pricks.
Hominoids
23-07-2005, 03:34
How did they breed an indulgent (moderate by todays standards) generation like yours?

1. The birth of teen leisure culture that resulted from the postwar prosperity of the '50s, and

2. The growth of corporate consumerism that followed.
Whitepowers
23-07-2005, 04:08
1. The birth of teen leisure culture that resulted from the postwar prosperity of the '50s, and

2. The growth of corporate consumerism that followed.

Agreed.
They rested on(morals) what their parents fought for.
Bonferoni
23-07-2005, 04:18
Ok, I know genX, baby boomers, and MTV generation, but what am I?
i was born in 1985...am I genY?
and, if so, what, if anything, are we known for?
Grampus
23-07-2005, 04:24
i was born in 1985...am I genY?
Yup, 'fraid so.
and, if so, what, if anything, are we known for?

Nothing, unless you count doing everything the Gen X'ers have already done, but repeating it in a slightly more banal form an achievement. However, time will tell, and who knows, maybe your generation will be the ones to immanentize the eschaton.
Southaustin
23-07-2005, 04:46
and, if so, what, if anything, are we known for?

So far, showing everyone your underwear and a proclivity towards 'plumbers butt' amongst the ladies.

On the good side, I have to say that you are all far more racially integrated than any previous generation.
Whitepowers
23-07-2005, 04:59
[QUOTE=Southaustin]So far, showing everyone your underwear

Believe it or not, they actually think its cool.

and a proclivity towards 'plumbers butt' amongst the ladies.

I know, its sad what has happenned to alot of girls.
They are just lazy overeating pigs.

On the good side, I have to say that you are all far more racially integrated than any previous generation.

Um good? :confused:
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 05:03
On the good side, I have to say that you are all far more racially integrated than any previous generation.
They're more tolerant and diverse than previous generations. They also consume novelty and technology with extreme gusto.

What they'll make with it is still up to them.
Southaustin
23-07-2005, 06:15
When I was a kind we used to race radio flyers down a long, steep street. Our parents would come out to cheer us on and drink beer while we wiped out into parked cars and got road rashed.
Today, my parents would be in JAIL for allowing that to happen.

We had massive, organized ROCK FIGHTS.
Today, the police would show up in riot gear and disperse us with tear gas.

Teachers used to whoop the piss out of kids on a regular basis. I had a teacher who used to hit me on the head with his ring for talking. If we didn't want detention hall on Saturday morning, we could opt for 20 swats with a paddle on Friday afternoon.
Today, after the the teacher had been thrown in jail and the lawsuit was settled, I would have my college education paid for.

When did everyone get so pussified?
Shut Up Eccles
23-07-2005, 06:23
I feel somewhat strange being a Generation Y-er who actually gives a shit about the world that's around me.
Calipalmetto
23-07-2005, 06:35
I feel somewhat strange being a Generation Y-er who actually gives a shit about the world that's around me.

That makes two of us...

*waves his little GenY flag feebly*

God, it sucks being someone wanting change trapped in a mediocre, "it's just fine as it is" world...

Lazy bastards.*

*Ok, so I'm a hyporcite. Ahhh, the delicious smell of hypocrisy in the morning, isn't it great?
Aminantinia
23-07-2005, 06:38
When did everyone get so pussified?

George Carlin's been asking the same question for years, it seems that it's not a new development.

I've been thinking on a way to remedy the situation though and I've come up with this: first, we outlaw childbirth. Anyone who bears a child will be shot on site without trial. Then, we get the draft going again (now I'm assuming you live in the U.S., sorry if you don't) and we send all the nation's young over to Vietnam and this time we stay until we've run out of warm bodies.

A bit gruesome and cruel, yes. But do you really want my generation (Y) to be around to run things a couple of decades down the road?
Takuma
23-07-2005, 06:42
I feel somewhat strange being a Generation Y-er who actually gives a shit about the world that's around me.
It's OK, you're not alone. (i.e. me)
Shut Up Eccles
23-07-2005, 06:47
It's OK, you're not alone. (i.e. me)

You should come to my high school. Surrounded by apathetics everywhere.
Calipalmetto
23-07-2005, 06:49
But do you really want my generation (Y) to be around to run things a couple of decades down the road?

Hey, just put us 3 that actually care in charge, and all wil be well, considering that the previous generation's tries at it blew like a bulimic after Christmas dinner....

*evil laugh*
Aminantinia
23-07-2005, 06:49
Go to just about any high school these days and it's the same way. Mine is somewhat less apathetic than most (I think) because I live in a college town, but that just means that everyone's a socialist and if you're not you're swine. Great improvement, let me tell you.
Calipalmetto
23-07-2005, 06:51
Go to just about any high school these days and it's the same way. Mine is somewhat less apathetic than most (I think) because I live in a college town, but that just means that everyone's a socialist and if you're not you're swine. Great improvement, let me tell you.

Try going to school in my town, where 96% of the population is hardline Republican, and if you're a socialist, then you're scum...

Maybe we should trade towns...
Iztatepopotla
23-07-2005, 06:52
We had massive, organized ROCK FIGHTS.
Today, the police would show up in riot gear and disperse us with tear gas.

He, he. We used to have rock fights too. I grew up in a city that's basically built on dunes, so it's lots of steep hills with lots of thorny plants growing on them. Our favorite pasttime? Throw ourselves down the dune and tumble for 20 or 30 meters through the thorns and sand :D
Aminantinia
23-07-2005, 06:58
Maybe we should trade towns...

I'll stick with the socialists, thank anyways though ;)
Calipalmetto
23-07-2005, 06:59
I'll stick with the socialists, thank anyways though ;)


Well, there's always Boulder... :D
Arnburg
23-07-2005, 10:14
You should all try and stop the stereotyping. We are all individuals with unique ideals, traits and personalities. I an a baby-boomer born in 1959, and so far, nothing of what I have read pertains to me. GOD bless!
Green israel
23-07-2005, 10:23
I hate my generation, but it don't really something I can change. every time I am suprised again from the polls that show how far I am from the streotipe of the israeli teenage.
Isla de Marcanio
23-07-2005, 10:23
Im a Y if 92 qualifies at all...
Findecano Calaelen
23-07-2005, 10:34
you baby boomers do suck but you had better music then us x'ers have
Vintovia
23-07-2005, 12:28
I was born in 1991-so Im gen Y?

What are the characteristics of Gen Y then?

Also, who are the MTV generation?

But don't worry, i despise my generation too. At least, the Uk version of my generation. Most of my peers are the children of Thatcher's children. So that makes us...uhhh...Thatcher's grandchildren? :confused:
[NS]Bluestrips2
23-07-2005, 13:29
i just hate our hypocrisy. all that raising the drinking age, going nuts over moderate underage drinking, keeping marajuana illegal, pretending that your 15 year old is too delicate to see cartoon sex in grand theft auto, etc. makes me sick.


I Second that !!
Dancing Penguin
23-07-2005, 13:48
You should all try and stop the stereotyping. We are all individuals with unique ideals, traits and personalities. I an a baby-boomer born in 1959, and so far, nothing of what I have read pertains to me. GOD bless!
*sings in his cracking teenage voice* Give peace a chance...

Seriosly though, it's not differnt generations that suck its people. All of them.
Jakutopia
23-07-2005, 14:11
Well I was glad to see gen X defined as including those of us born in the mid to late 60's - i was born in 66 and graduated in 84 - for a long time we were considered part of no generation, just a small group born between the boomers and Xers. Although I have to admit, those of us born in that 4 to 5 year time period do seem to have different attitudes from either generation. We believed in a lot of things the Boomers did, like hard work and such but we disagreed on the amount of prejudice and bigotry many of them still displayed. We had to teach the boomers to remove certain words and attitudes - mostly racial type things. Then we had to drag them kicking and screaming out of the cold war - I can still remember having conversations with my Boomer mom and trying to convince her that Soviets were just like us - loved their kids and country, etc. - I'm still not sure she believes me LOL

But now I've heard a lot that seems to mix the Xers with the old "me" generation they said started with those born in 70 - and that's not quite the attitude of my little group either.

Maybe we're doomed to be outcasts ........
Southaustin
23-07-2005, 17:25
GEN X was born between 1965-1975 (some extend it up to 1980. Whatever.)
The primary distinguishing factors being that there was a significant drop off in births during this period of time (WW2 generation stopped having kids because they were entering their late 30's and 40's) and the Boomers began to have their own children.

I was in college when we were given this tag. I wrote papers and marketing projects based on the characteristics of Gen X and how to market widgets to them.

One of the major selling points to a Gen Xer is Anti-Boomerism.
Boomers, for the most part, are self-centered individually and generationally
self-absorbed with their collective childhoods and early adulthoods, the almost mythical 60's (which ended around 1973).

A key aspect to this Anti-Boomerism is their obnoxious and arrogant acknowledgement that they are, in fact, individually self centered and collectively self absorbed. They alternately wring their hands about this and celebrate it. But this is all self serving because as long as the subject is them, it's a very interesting subject.

The Gen Xers, see it differently. They saw the repercussions, and in some respects bore the brunt of them, for this aggrandizement and hubris. Broken homes and all that entails being the major complaint. One aspect of the resentment about the high divorce rate is that Boomers got to grow up in a nuclear family and, for one reason or another, chose to deny that to their children.

I could go on but I've made my main points.

<insert boilerplate disclaimers-may not apply on an individual basis, all generalities based upon an amalgam of data>
Arnburg
24-07-2005, 16:52
As a baby-boomer these are the things that I was taught and have lived by all my life:

1) Love GOD above all. Follow his commandments.
2) Love thy neighbor as thyself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
3) Help those in need.
4) Life is about sharing and caring.
5) Protect the environment and nature. It's the world our children will live in someday.
6) Never descriminate against age/race. I had and have friends of all ages and ethnicities.
7) Work hard and be productive and responsible. Provide for your family.
8) Enjoy a full moral, happy and healthy life.
9) Be polite and courteous. Show and share your love, respect and wisdom at all times.
10) Allway fight the things that are wrong, bad, immoral or injust. Protect and teach your children the same values and virtues.

GOD bless all!
Leonstein
25-07-2005, 08:23
What a square! :D
Insufficient Funds
25-07-2005, 08:44
Generation Why?
Since 1983.
Poo-Hoo-Boo-Too
25-07-2005, 08:54
Does 1989 count as y generation?
Yurka
25-07-2005, 09:09
Does 1989 count as y generation?

Yep and welcome to the club (1985).
Bombolobolia
25-07-2005, 10:05
I don't have a lot of respect for the Boomers as a generation. They were all LSD and revolution 35 years ago, then they got their diplomas and now they drive SUVs and vote Republican. They justify their hypocrisy with rationalizations that "things were different then" or "there was a war on" and "drugs weren't as potent then." American imperialism, racism and war are still around and pot and acid still aren't addictive. But no, these dilettantes act like they went to a protest in 1972 and therefore have served their time in the trenches against the forces of American fascism, and are now entitled to relax in the suburbs. So who's going to change things? Their complacent, spoiled kids? The washed up relics of their glory days? I think not; Tom Hayden is a congressman for christ's sake! Either the system bought the boomers off completely or they never really cared in the first place.

People like you and I are the ones who care, so we probably will. The average boomer's kids are so jaded and apathetic that they'd never vote, let alone become activists. The thing about a republic, like America, is that it's best when fewer people vote. Because if only those who give a shit voted, then they will elect those who also give a shit.
Bombolobolia
25-07-2005, 10:21
You should come to my high school. Surrounded by apathetics everywhere.
I know EXACTLY what you mean. Look at my previous post, though. The people who don't care won't amount to shit. There are people like that in every generation. Although I get the distinct feeling that there is a huge dichotomy in our generation between the interested, involved intellegensia, and the idiotic, apathetic, MTV-fueled automotons.
Also, why does everyone feel it neccesary to name generations? What is there that dictates when one generation ends and another begins? And what the high holy fuck is up with calling us "Generation Y"? Is that some "clever" turn of the phrase "Generation 'why?'"? Fuck that! I think we should give ourselves an honorable title. I can't think of one right now, but "Generation Y" isn't doing it for me.
Syniks
25-07-2005, 20:30
About 15 years or so William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called "Generations" which shows how the Narcisistic/Spiritual Boomer paradigm, followed by a generation of children screwed by their actions, has been an historical constant in the US since the first settlement by Europeans.

Expanding on the theme, they wrote a book called "13th Gen - Abort, Retry, Fail" about the "X-Gen" and how it is basically our lot as a "reactive" (or "nomad") generational archetyppe to get screwed. Basically, for a good feel for the screwage, just look at how "Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll" became "AIDS, Crack Punk & Rap" :headbang:

See http://www.fourthturning.com/my_html/body_generations_in_history.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss_and_Howe

I also wrote a bit of a rant about this back in 1996 based in large on their early work and my research.

It’s time to vote again, so here is something to ponder as we prepare to re-elect a government of, by and for ‘Baby Boomers’. . . They hate us. They hate us because we don’t need gurus or shiny rocks. We don’t need to reach our inner child. We know who we are, if not where we are going. We are in their way; the first generation born that adults took pills not to have; the violators of the zero-population-growth movement. We were the guinea pigs of their great experiment in social relativism; but now, in their new quest for values, they consider us damaged goods -- conveniently forgetting they caused the damage. They have put more of our generation in jail then all other groups combined – for ‘crimes’ that they created, by laws they wrote. We do things, we don’t just talk, and they hate us -- because deep down they know where our actions will take us. We are the Pattons of the ‘Lost Generation,' the Twains of the ‘Gilded’ 1860s, the Washingtons of the generation of ‘Liberty.' We are destined for a greatness the Boomer’s ‘Age of Aquarius’ can never hope to achieve, and it galls them. We are the ‘X’ generation, the 13th generation under the US Constitution, and like the generation that forged that document we too are hated and feared.

What makes us who we are, and how can a generation of MTV watching ‘slackers’ be anything like those heroes before us? The Boomer legacy we inherited has not been all that encouraging. Their rabble rousing, sexuality, drug use and general degeneracy has become institutionalized, but they complain that our generation seems to excel in them. They grew up with publicly touted morals and family values, only to disabuse them during our childhood and leave us floundering for a center. Even their TV was a candy coated Father Knows Best trying not to damage impressionable minds. But children of the 70s turned on the afternoon TV and saw their country wracked with scandals like Watergate and Chappaquiddick; their fathers at war or rebelling against their government; their mothers burning bras and being arrested; gas lines; inflation and “stag-flation”; riots, rebellion and general chaos. The TV they gave us touted the benefits of the previous decade of “peace and love” that fractured families and made kids unsure of whom their parent would bring to the breakfast table. Little kids just love to watch adults slither and squirm like a slug under a magnifying glass -- it makes them feel so safe.

At every phase of their lives Boomers have entered a world of promise and excitement, but have left a barren desert in their wake. The mantra of “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll” has become the litany of AIDS, Crack, Punk & Rap. They preach social consciousness but live bourgeois ‘Sharper Image’ lives. Hippie becomes Yuppie -- they scorn, then take over corporate America -- only to downsize the college/entry level market out of existence, keeping the best jobs for themselves. They raise the cost of higher education to prohibitive levels. “Liberal” Boomer leaders make more laws to enrich themselves and protect their grandchildren, while leaving the tab to those of us stuck in the middle. Why should we be cynical or bitter?

We came of age just after their generation of indulgence and self-righteousness, yet when we seem to have self motivated goals it draws their condemnation and scorn. Ever the darlings of the liberal elite, even while they were revolting in the cultural mutiny of the ‘60s, the Boomers were being extolled as the generation destined to transcend civilization. But we are called slackers; stupid, uncontrolled, violent, self-absorbed, un-motivated underachievers; and hundreds of other aspersions by those only a decade or two older than us. But hey -- the same was true of Lost generation, those partying, jazzy flappers who as teens in 1911 were accused by Atlantic Monthly columnist Cornelia Comer, of “mental rickets and curvature of the soul,” of a “culte du moi,” of growing up “painfully commercialized even in their school days.” Comer asked, “What excuse have you, anyhow, for turning out flimsy, shallow, amusement seeking creatures?” Read today’s news. I ask, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

Ah, those Boomers; they want nothing more than for history to consider them the apex of American civilization. Degrading us only serves to make themselves look better to each other. They have co-opted every movement for societal good, every positive event of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and claimed it as their own. Civil-Rights, the end of Vietnam, the resignation of Nixon, etc.: They think because they made the most noise they made the most difference. Symbolism over Substance, it’s like a sickness with them.

We don’t have our heads in the clouds of impracticable idealism, nor are we mired in narcissistic Boomer ‘self actualization.' Our character is more like those angry orators of the American Revolution. Attracted to high risk and decisive action they rose up and struck down the burdensome laws of a corrupt, narcissistic government, leaving something simple and no-nonsense in its place. Their motto could have been the ‘Just do it’ of the ‘90s as easily as ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ The Bill of Rights -- call them the Ten Sound Bites. Keep it simple, stupid.

That’s what we need to vote for; simplicity, deeds -- not words, practicality not pretty faces. We definitely do not need to vote for the hubris of a generation of people who refuse to grow up, but want us to pay for their games, their rules. It’s just Government. It’s just the people who want to tell you what you can and can’t do with your money. Run your own life. It’s your vote. Just do it.

So far their theories have panned out... I'm not looking forward to 2010...
Kryozerkia
25-07-2005, 20:44
Another Gen Y'er... (1983)

The other name I've heard for the generation produced by the Babyboomers is Babyboomer-echo.